Digital Marketing Handbook

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Google Instant 181


Non-indexable data


Despite its immense index, there is also a considerable amount of data available in online databases which are
accessible by means of queries but not by links. This so-called invisible or deep Web is minimally covered by
Google and other search engines.[15] The deep Web contains library catalogs, official legislative documents of
governments, phone books, and other content which is dynamically prepared to respond to a query.

Google optimization


Since Google is the most popular search engine, many webmasters have become eager to influence their website's
Google rankings. An industry of consultants has arisen to help websites increase their rankings on Google and on
other search engines. This field, called search engine optimization, attempts to discern patterns in search engine
listings, and then develop a methodology for improving rankings to draw more searchers to their client's sites. Search
engine optimization encompasses both "on page" factors (like body copy, title elements, H1 heading elements and
image alt attribute values) and Off Page Optimization factors (like anchor text and PageRank). The general idea is to
affect Google's relevance algorithm by incorporating the keywords being targeted in various places "on page", in
particular the title element and the body copy (note: the higher up in the page, presumably the better its keyword
prominence and thus the ranking). Too many occurrences of the keyword, however, cause the page to look suspect to
Google's spam checking algorithms. Google has published guidelines for website owners who would like to raise
their rankings when using legitimate optimization consultants.[16] It has been hypothesized, and, allegedly, is the
opinion of the owner of one business about which there has been numerous complaints, that negative publicity, for
example, numerous consumer complaints, may serve as well to elevate page rank on Google Search as favorable
comments.[17] The particular problem addressed in The New York Times article, which involved DecorMyEyes, was
addressed shortly thereafter by an undisclosed fix in the Google algorithm. According to Google, it was not the
frequently published consumer complaints about DecorMyEyes which resulted in the high ranking but mentions on
news websites of events which affected the firm such as legal actions against it.[18]

Functionality


Google search consists of a series of localized websites. The largest of those, the google.com site, is the top
most-visited website in the world.[19] Some of its features include a definition link for most searches including
dictionary words, the number of results you got on your search, links to other searches (e.g. for words that Google
believes to be misspelled, it provides a link to the search results using its proposed spelling), and many more.

Search syntax


Google's search engine normally accepts queries as a simple text, and breaks up the user's text into a sequence of
search terms, which will usually be words that are to occur in the results, but one can also use Boolean operators,
such as: quotations marks (") for a phrase, a prefix such as "+" , "-" for qualified terms (no longer valid, the '+' was
removed from google on 10/19/11[20]), or one of several advanced operators, such as "site:". The webpages of
"Google Search Basics"[21] describe each of these additional queries and options (see below: Search options).
Google's Advanced Search web form gives several additional fields which may be used to qualify searches by such
criteria as date of first retrieval. All advanced queries transform to regular queries, usually with additional qualified
term.
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